Click on “Settings”, scroll down to the bottom to “Linked Accounts”. Click on crap. Boom. You’re now able to access Facebook when you’re signed in to other services. You’re welcome.
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Social media networking basics for professionals
Via http://www.intersectionconsulting.com/
What do you want out of social media? If you’re looking for fun then it doesn’t really matter where you begin. If you are looking to utilize it to network professionally in some capacity then there is a very specific place to start with it.
Of course social media can and should be used as a reflection of your offline life, so more than likely you will have a good mixture of both pleasure and professional. That being said, here’s a great place to start if you’re looking to grow your professional network:
Sign up to Facebook, Twitter and Linked-in. Add relevant profile/bio info on all of them. Use your universal avatar on all of them. Since these are my three main social networks I generally change my avatar on all three to show an updated recent acceptable photo. All of my other networks have the same exact photo of me that isn’t the most recent one.
The most important thing to add to social networks is a clear, close photo that people can relate to. This isn’t the time to be creative or artistic. You can do that in other photos that are not your avatar. This is the photo that draws them in. Any other photos show your personality.
If you function online professionally you must have a professional link. Whether it be your website, blog or even JUST your Linked-in or visual cv link, you MUST have a link that allows the viewer to find more information about you.
Once you’ve put all your information in your social network bios I would double check it for grammar, cadence and keywords. Keywords are important- ESPECIALLY on Twitter- because this is how people find you in searches on these sites. For example, if you’re in construction management you would put those two words plus any major relevant words in your bio. In your Twitter bio you only have 160 words to tell people who you are so it’s EXTREMELY important to get to the point and just list the major things you do with the specific keywords.
On Twitter it’s also important to talk about these topics often but not in a robotic manner. Be aware of your conversations and how you are saying something. There are people out there monitoring keywords in search.twitter.com for real-time mention of them so they can connect with like minds. There are also people who automatically add anyone who mentions certain keywords. There are many tools to monitor keywords mentioned in real time but I would start with a simple search.twitter.com search to add people who are talking about what you’re interested in.
Join groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and become active in them. Once you meet new people in Twitter add them on Facebook and LinkedIn to further extend your relationships. Also, be sure to build your local connections (or connections where you travel often to) because nothing is more important than extending online relationships offline. Also, besides just extending online relationships offline, extend offline relationships online. Find out people’s social network information and add them right away if you can.
This is a beginning. You’ll learn more as you go. Just remember that your social networks are only as valuable as the time and effort you put into them. Every network changes as your relationships blossom. Cultivate them and soon enough you’ll begin to prosper.
Facebook’s New Touchscreen Interface vs. Mobile Interface
Facebook recently released a touchscreen optimized interface for phones such as the iPhone and android models. It’s interesting that even though Facebook is one of the most downloaded social networking iPhone apps that Facebook is still continuing to optimize the mobile web on many different fronts.
Considering they just launched their newly redesigned homepage in a more streamlined newsfeed focused way it makes me wonder if this addition is within their overall brand vision for their user interface and user experience.
One thing I DO like about the new Touch interface is the Phone section (Also notice the new notifications red icon in the upper left corner). It focuses on who you can call, as opposed to the mobile interface which focuses on all your friends and pointing out who has their phone number listed with a phone icon.
What do you think about the differences? Not enough? Too much? What other changes should be made?
Posted via email from db’s digital branding database
Web 2.0 Map
Web 2.0 Map, originally uploaded by Damien Basile.
This is what the Web 2.0 world looks like if it were laid out back to back in just icons.
A more in-depth look at what the websites are can be seen at my Flickr set Web 2.0. You can also find all of these websites at http://go2web20.net
Social Media ROI: no different than traditional measurement
Most brands in the social media space want to be able to define Social Media Return On Investment (smROI) and for good reason. They’re putting in money to the medium so they should be getting more money out of it ideally. In this respect there is NO difference between traditional and social media measurement. Here’s why:
In both mediums there are intangibles such as word of mouth and message internalization. These two factors are the strongest influencers that your customer will encounter. Generally speaking brands don’t measure the effects of these factors with the exception of the NetPromoter Score .
So why are people freaking out about measuring social media’s effectiveness? One word: money.
Let’s relate smROI back to traditional ROI in advertising. Companies advertise in magazines, newspapers, commercials and all other sorts of media outlets yet there isn’t a particular outlet that will tell them that someone bought their product or service based on advertising. Sure there’s a targeted audience there based on subscribers and media consumer demographics but unless you’re polling people at point of purchase on exactly why they bought your product then you can’t actively tie outreach to purchases. So why do companies invest money into these channels? Because there’s an audience there.
The problem with social media is that the audience isn’t built in like traditional media. You have to build up a following all on your own. Your message is competing for attention along with tons of others. That’s no different than traditional where there are many channels, magazines, newspapers and ads.
What HAS changed are the channels of communication. Instead of big media corporations dictating what the consumer consumes now the power is in the hands of the consumer. Whereas before consumers were able to choose anything within a limited confines now they have almost an unlimited pool to choose from online.
For you as a brand nothing has changed except the venue. Think of your customers as the new big media corporation. They’re deciding the programming, they’re cancelling shows, they’re greenlighting the content and syndicating your show into perpetual prosperity.
In part 2 I’ll go into the different types of measurement you can do in social media to further define smROI for your brand.
30 Days To A Better Brand: Day 10 – Hierarchy of brand importance and your social equity
I started this 30 Days To A Better Brand series with the intent to write an article everyday for 30 days. Sometimes intentions can not be synced up with actualities. My business started getting much busier so I had to decide what was more important- sticking to the plan or going with the flow. This is also the decision your brand must face in business.
I personally decided that doing what I had to do for Esultancy (my new social strategy firm with Oz Sultan and Khayyam Wakil) was of more pressing importance than sticking to a regimented posting schedule. This is a valuable lesson for all brands. When an opportunity presents itself that is more pressing you should shift to accommodate it.
The main criteria I gauge how I deal with situations are based on how pressing it is, how opportune it is, if it’s “on brand” and if it will net more money in the short run than the other project being displaced. While blogging can be lucrative and elevates your profile thus leading to money, unfortunately I don’t blog for money.
So I decided to focus on getting my business off the ground. We’re so enamored with the content creation and sharing products that we tend to forget that we’re here to make money. Regardless of using social media for fun, everyone has a personal brand and social media usage can affect you.
Everyone has social equity. What we do in the public eye shapes people’s perception of us and ultimately affects how much money we make. Referrals, appraisals, partnerships and promotions are formed over time. Do what’s right for you and your brand and in the end you’ll do what’s right for your pocket.
Twitter updates its status, kills Spam Owl
While most of you were obsessing over the Kanye West meme taking the internet by storm, Twitter quietly rolled out an update to their brand image. They killed off the Spam Owl and replaced him with their happy-go-lucky mascot Twitter bird. This comes right on the heels of an update to their TOS many of you have already received by now.
This most recent change is just an extension of their homepage image revamp that focuses more on search and trending topics now.
Of course this update comes amidst other high profile updates from major players such as Facebook (Facebook Lite, @ mentions, Application Prototypes), Google (Fast Flip, Public Sector, mysterious UFO logo saga) and Bing (image search). With the new TOS including references to advertising and Twitter.com traffic plateauing, could this new brand image update be Twitter solidifying it’s image to monetize soon?
One thing we know for sure with Twitter is that most of what they implement is done without fanfare in stages. Just as the TOS has been implemented over the course of the last week, the default avatar isn’t changing all at once. In fact, it’s changing over time into many different flavors: purple, dark blue, baby blue, lime green, dark green, orange, dark red so far.
Even with the staggered rollout, established users with their own custom avatars are already having issues:
We’ve already seen the Fail Whale go the way of the dodo in place of a generic 503-error page. Only time will tell what images will replace the other now iconic characters of Technically Wrong Robot, and Maintenance Caterpillar & Chill Ice Cream Cone. What other image changes and default avatar colors have you spotted?
Storming the social media castle: your customer is king
Social media has swung the pendulum back from traditional media’s focus solely on the brand as king. The peasants are fed up with their tyrranical ruler and demand to be heard. These followers and friends are storming the social media castle of web 2.0. They’re not standing for anything less than full court with the King of the land. What the King has to say depends on how long he’ll stay on his throne.
Today’s landscape is a volatile one at best with the economy in an upheaval, jobs in question, and general unsureness all across the land. People want to feel security from somewhere. This is when they look to what they love and trust: your brand.
The unsettled state of the world coupled with the proliferation of real-time social tools have now given the peasants their pitchforks and torches they need to be heard. The unsureness of your customer’s environment plus new technological tools to communicate directly faster equals the perfect storm.
Your customer today doesn’t just want instant access answers, they DEMAND it. With all of the old ways failing them each and every day, they are increasingly latching on to new ways of communicating, thinking and purchasing. You don’t tell them what to do, they tell you.
History is littered with the corpses of Kings who forgot what makes them Kings: their subjects. Without a kingdom you can not be a king. Likewise, without customers you will not have a product or brand to sell – you’ll just go out of business.
This is why your customer is king. That’s ALWAYS been a given. The only thing that’s changed is that now your customer has access to tools through social media to feel empowered to affect the change they’ve always wanted but have felt discouraged to do so.
Keeping this in consideration, I have a panel on Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM) in the South by Southwest (SXSW) panelpicker that you can vote on. Brian Solis has been kind enough to collaborate with me in crafting this panel & gathering some of the top minds in this area , including himself.
Social CRM: Managing Conversations to Protect/Shape Brands
An in-depth discussion of how social media networks & tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs are important to brand customer relationship management. Who should be heading up these efforts, what rules they need to abide by and what companies are getting it right/wrong will be looked into. In the social Web, a brand’s perception reputation is in the hands of the new influencers – those customers, peers, and prospects who leverage social media to voice their views, opinions, and questions. It’s how you discover and engage in these discussions that determine the brand’s resonance.
- What is Social CRM and how is it different than CRM or CRM 2.0?
- Who owns the conversation? Who is responsible for sCRM if Social Media is cluttering the internal marketing landscape (PR, Marketing, Interactive)?
- How is the infrastructure of CRM adapting to incorporate the “now” or real-time web?
- What are the new roles required for sCRM?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of offshoring vs. nearshoring?
- How does an organization justify the less costly form of inbound-focused customer service to outbound CRM and ORM?
- Is there value in engaging everyone on the social web?
- How can companies change and adapt internally to reduce the negative chatter, thus reducing required responses?
- How should a brand manage a crisis about them in social media?
- How much transparency does a brand need to have in social media in respect to government agency regulations?
AutoDM + Autofollow = Autorelationship (you are who you tweet)
Frustrations have arisen as of late- yet again- with some notable bloggers on Twitter with autoDMs. I used to autoDM that I autofollowed them but since Twitter exploded with spammers I had to stop that. In a compromised network it’s not about the tactics they use but who you allow in your personal network.
The private Direct Message (or DM) is an extremely valuable tool for having timely sensitive conversations without exchanging emails. The conversation ecosystem breaks down when you allow anyone at all to connect with you. Allowing someone into your life is a privilege that shouldn’t be given out lightly.
Selective selection
My good friend & guest blogger Anaiis Flox once said to me that she’d rather give the keys to her house to someone than give them her website password. In an online world of ambient intimacy and unabashed public living in social media, your network reflects your value & worth. In other words, you are who you tweet.
There’s an old saying that goes, show me your closest 4 friends and I can tell you all about yourself. Of course I’m paraphrasing but the sentiment is still the same. Your personal brand is comprised of how you look, what you say, how you hold yourself, what you do and who you choose to associate with.
Connecting to everyone
Connecting with anyone online regardless of who they are is the offline equivalent to talking to anyone and everyone that comes into your view. With billions of people in this world (many unsavory) we can’t possibly speak to everyone we encounter everywhere. This is why we set up guidelines to who and in what capacity we’ll engage someone. Online is no different.
Today even spammers, multi-level marketers (MLM) and robots have accounts that have tens of thousands of followers. This is due to autofollowing and pump & dump tactics. You may have quantity but do you have quality? Numbers play a factor in how many people you are able to reach but they are not the only factor nor are they the most important factor to your intrinsic value.
Auto-caring
If you’ve connected with thousands upon thousands of people who all want to broadcast to you then who’s really listening to your message? Casting a wide net will net you some fish but are they the right type of fish or even up to your standards?
In Twitter you have no one to blame but yourself for the autoDM. I admit some spammy people get through every now and then on my account but when they do I immediately unfollow them. I’m not so concerned about autoDMs as I am about mentionspam. While I choose who to allow to private message me I have no control over who mentions my @ name.
Mention Spam
For more prominent higher-profile twitterers this can potentially be a huge problem. The more valuable you are to larger amounts of people that follow you the more likely they are to talk to you. Raise your profile and value enough then you are more likely to attract spammers who openly broadcast to you by attaching your Twitter name to their spammy message. A messy situation indeed.
What can you do to combat the spam?
Be selective about who you connect with. Remember it’s the depth of each relationship that will raise your value much farther than the breadth of your entire network alone.
Be proactive when curating your community. If someone is spamming your public stream then do something about it. Block them, let @spam know & ask your network to do the same.
Your network is only as good as you allow it to be. If someone is going against general accepted standards of the network you’ve curated then let them know. Be a part of the solution not the problem.
Tr.im: the perfect URL shortening brand for Twitter, Bit.ly to buy
Tr.im has recently announced that they are shutting down due to non-monetization. According to their press release they “cannot find a way to justify continuing to work on it”. While they may have shopped it around and “no one perceived any value in it, or they wanted to operate a shortener under a differently branded domain name.” I have some ideas on what should happen with their service.
Tr.im is the best brand name for a URL shortener out there. You know EXACTLY what it does by the name (it trims it), plus it’s only 5 characters while most others (including bit.ly) are at least 6. In a character sensitive environment where novices may stumble upon your links these two items are very important.
Here’s some thoughts on who should buy Tr.im:
As of now Twitter has no personal URL shortening service. They made the move from TinyURL to Bit.ly and can just as easily move to their own in-house shortening service. Why is this important? Twitter has been building out their features, and most recently redesigned their homepage to focus on search. By having an in-house trimming service they can create a more seamless experience for their users. They can also own the statistics and analytics. This will be increasingly important for monetization, gauging the depth of their network, figuring out the velocity of messages spread and their growth and keeping their users on their site longer.
Tr.iim graphic courtesy of David Kadavy via his Flickr
Bit.ly
Bit.ly is currently Twitter’s default shortening service. There are other competitors but this factor has strongly bolstered bit.ly’s rise through the ranks. Acquiring all of tr.im’s shortened URLs along with their proprietary name would benefit them greatly. Bit.ly could redirect all tr.ims to bit.ly’s platform, so essentially you will be seeing bit.ly’s analytics coupled with tr.im’s name.
Bit.ly is not short on money, considering they just were funded for $2 Million. Much has been said about Twitter’s rumored acquisition of Bit.ly but until it happens it’s just that, a rumor. Also of note, Bit.ly is building out a full-featured platform that is said to rival Digg’s current service.
TinyURL vs. Bit.ly vs. Tr.im graph
One thing IS for certain though: the recent social network DDoS attack and Tr.im’s announcement of their closure reaffirms the fragility of social media properties. A site can be inaccessible or close down at any time, so don’t hedge your bets on any particular one just yet.
